


Singing Dawn Bells

by Misterjk



Series: ⨯ ⨯ ⨯ no evil [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Brother Complex, Family, Gen, Sister Complex, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 17:20:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misterjk/pseuds/Misterjk
Summary: They barely escaped from their homeland. No doctor would take them. He couldn't lose her—And she wouldn't lose him.He watched fascinated as ethereal threads sewed the heart in place and he whispered under his breath, 'Till death do we part.' And she would never die.





	1. Who are You?

He remembers that in the beginning everything is difficult. He doesn’t know how they made it really. A tiny boy and an even tinier girl. They should have died that night. His body was literal dead weight. They should have died in that cave. But when he came to he was warm or rather she was warm and holding his dead hand.

Wolf had saved them. It was some mercy in that man’s heart that he didn’t bury the boy immediately and maybe something else that he didn’t bury that boy the next day either. That dead body showed no signs of decay. Maybe it was something Wolf had done—maybe he’d already replaced the body with a dummy. He’d later know what really happened.

She starts working for him in exchange for food and shelter. She isn’t nearly as smart as he was, but she puts forth a good effort and labors hard. When she returns from her day of labor, she shares her portion of warm food and water with him even though his body can't swallow on his own. She recounts her day to him, squeezes his hand and then crawls into bed next to him, whispering her plea to wake up soon.

He had wondered then if he should speak up to her and tell her to stop. But maybe that would have been even more cruel. He was dead. It was wrong of him to leave her behind like that, but he couldn’t let her die. And he was still here...sort of.

It’s the fourth day since he’s been dead that Law really catches Wolf trying to prepare to bury his body. It’s when she’s asleep, but he’s awake. He can sort of see through her, sort of feel what’s around through her. He can’t hear though and it’s a strange thing, but it makes sense since she can’t even hear himself.

Wolf gently pulls the sheets up and checks his body. For a moment they’re both stunned when his arm hangs limp as he lifts a hand. The body is colder than hers, but there are no signs of rigor mortis. He is dead. He knows this. He can feel it. There’s no other way to explain what is going on, but the body in front of him, besides being all too still, shows no sign of death.

She wakes while the blanket is pulled back and a chill covers her arms. She yawns too quietly as she sits up in confusion. For a brief moment, she wonders if she’s going to be beat. He can sense it in the panic that sets in her bones when she looks up to see Wolf.

But the old man sits down beside her and crosses his fingers underneath his chin.

“I...he’s dead you know.”

The panic dissipates and he feels her suddenly awash with confusion as she reads his lips. She shakes her head and starts a little too loudly that there’s no way he’s dead.

“He’s just asleep,” she says, her voice reaching a quieter tone once she realizes there's too much force behind her voice. He frowns a little to himself. He knows that she understands death. She was going to be in the academy soon before they had left. There’s no way she doesn’t realize he’s dead.

It’s as if she can hear him scolding her naivety that she frowns. She looks down and places her tiny hands over her heart, “He’s not dead. I know he’s still here. I just don’t know how to get him _here_.”

This time, it is their turns to be confused, “Right?”

He doesn’t do anything at first, not that he can really _do anything_. Does he dare reply? Try to stretch his thoughts? He feels his metaphysical body swallow in nervousness. What did he have to lose at this point?

_‘Lami?’_

The brunette seems to immediately perk up as he calls her name and he can feel that nervousness shift into excitement. She can hear him! Maybe.

He later finds out that it is no so much that she hears his voice so much as she _feels_ his voice and intentions. Of course he apologizes for scolding her before and she only smiles. He feels dumb for a few seconds and almost wants to cry. Lami was his everything and he's so glad she didn't die. He'd saved her, but it cost him his life. He thought he'd be in this limbo in her heart? forever. Some limbo alone, but no, Lami was talking to him and she could hear him—sort of.

At some point Wolf cuts in. He is smart enough to not interrupt. There is something bigger than a child's imagination at play. It certainly explained how she was mostly unaffected by the boy's assumedly dead body.

He asks her about any strange fruit she may have eaten and she looks away from him immediately. She clenches her nightgown, which is just an oversized shirt, so tightly her hands go white. She shakes her head, but they can see how her body shakes.

They can tell it is a lie, but they do not push the child shaking like a wet cat. Law feels his blood go cold and then hot with fury. He doesn't do it today or tomorrow or even this month, but eventually he gets it from her. She was forced to eat a fruit and instructed that if she ever told anyone, his body would surely burst into flames on the spot. He knows who did it. And he knows that Lami believed it with all her heart because it takes Wolf to find her crying in the snow, too afraid to see if his body had come aflame.

But, for now, Lami keeps her mouth shut about it and he and Wolf start thinking of what devil fruit it must be that she ate. He thinks Wolf knows more than he does about it, after all, he didn't even think about the potential for devil fruit till Wolf had mentioned it.

She's put to bed again and he tries his best to keep quiet and calm so that he doesn't keep her up. It works and eventually she is asleep, breathing softly with the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

He experiments immediately.

Tries to get her to move. Too much maybe. He tries to focus on just her finger. Nothing. He tries to ask her to move, quietly of course. But he stops when he can feel her stir a little. No ‘talking’ then. He tries to imagine himself lying down and he starts to feel a connection so he chases the sensation. He tries to imagine himself in Lami's tiny body, lying down, lying still. He closes his eyes as he feels that strange humming connection align itself closer.

When he opens his eyes, he hears nothing but he can see the roof. Like _see_ the roof. It feels strange at first, but he sits up and looks at his hands, at her tiny hands. They shake a little, but he's able to open and close them like normal. He imagines this is how it would be like post surgery after losing both your arms.

It is a little jarring to see his own body lying down next to him. He reaches out and checks for a pulse. It's weak, but there. Was it his devil fruit or hers? He's so curious, but for now he has another focus. He climbs out of bed and makes his way to Wolf's study.

He's given a curious look but he's not turned away. Wolf waits for him to get settled in a chair that's too tall for him before writing something down on a sheet of paper and presenting it. It was easier than reading lips in this dim lighting and he was unfortunately not nearly as good at it as Lami was.

_“Who are you?”_

Wolf is sharp. He knows that something is amis and he doesn't try to hide it. Instead, he takes the pencil that's offered to him and writes in shakey script, _“Trafalgar Law.”_


	2. Stretch

He tells her the next day of his discovery and she’s more excited than he is. In fact, as she is busy jumping around in her exclamations, she runs right into her door. He doesn’t even have a second to worry about her—she’s already up and chirping on about how smart and cool he is. He figured out how to use his devil fruit so quickly and had already figured out hers! 

Sort of. 

At this point, Law still doesn’t know what his sister’s devil fruit is and he can tell how much she starts to panic at the near thought of mentioning it. He doesn’t push her. She’s his sunshine—all he’s got left. He can wait. 

They try to change places, but she’s too excited for Law and he can’t quite match the swing of her legs as she sits down, her heels scuffing against the supporting rod beneath her seat. It’s a few days later that they are able to switch places even while running around, but for now he suggests that she lie down. 

She all but dives into her bed and giggles to herself. He can’t help but feel himself smile, but if they’re going to try this he needs her to focus. So he can focus—he later learns that this focus doesn’t matter so long as he can match her distracted joy. It is difficult. 

It’s different when Law is in charge this time. Now that Lami is awake he can feel her. It’s a little strange, but not unsettling. Rather, the whole feeling of it is comforting. Like a warm embrace from a well-kept hearth. Her excitement like the bubbles from a cool soda. She coos in awe at his accomplishments and asks why he can’t run like she can. 

His legs are longer than hers, he needs to remind her and in return he can hear, no, feel? her hum in understanding. It’s a strange sensation. Feeling her presence like she had said before. But like the night before, he recognizes that he still cannot physically hear with Lami's ears. It makes sense, she's deaf. However, it is still confusing as to how he can hear when he doesn't have control of Lami's body. 

Actually...Can she hear now?

He asks her this in his mind and he can strangely enough feel her shake her head. Maybe it is because she is already deaf. She’s just not familiar with the sensation. He doesn't know for sure yet. He doesn't know enough about either of their devil fruit powers yet to say anything concrete. 

For now he listens to Lami giggle and ask if he's alright while he runs into things. Holding the reins is difficult. He's still not used to being in Lami's body. Besides last night, he hasn't physically moved in five days and his depth perception is all skewed. He never realized how much taller than Lami he had gotten in the past three years till now. He supposed they…no, he never took the time to look. There was always something else to worry about. He squeezes those tiny hands tight and can sort of feel the ghost of hands resting on them. 

Law recomposes himself and assures her that he is alright. They...he had put them on the wrong path for a brief while, but they were better now. Well, he was dead...they had each other and he wasn't going to lose that again. 

He can feel her resounding agreement from her and feels his heart swell with warmth. 

They stumble about the house for a bit long till he can walk on his own effectively. Though there is something that Law picks up out of the corner of his eye occasionally. Like a speck of light that’s always out of his line of sight. He asks about it and Lami says nothing about it. He doesn’t press her. 

* * *

It's the tenth day since they've been in Wolf's care. Lami is usually in charge, but for a few hours each day she let's Law lead. He occasionally catches the speck of light, maybe the size of a dime, float around, but Lami still says nothing about it. So he says nothing about it for now.

Sometimes he does labor for Wolf instead or during breaks he reads while Lami ‘naps’ in their shared space. Head space. Heart space? He thinks he likes that better. It feels closer. 

But this morning when he wakes up, Lami is already up before him, cooing excitedly about something or another. He blearily rolls over onto his side with the sound of shuffling sheets and freezes immediately. Sound? He tentatively clenches the sheets in his hands and hears the sound of old cotton rubbing against each other. 

He throws the covers up with a start, hearing the  _ fwip _ of air whipping past and feels his heart sink. Lami lies beside him, deathly still. The warm flush of her cheeks now pale. He can feel the panic from before settle in and his eyes start to burn, daring tears to fall. The sound of giggling has long since stopped. 

‘Law?’

Hearing her voice in his heart space is enough to bring him back like the breath has been forced back into his lungs. He can hear his pulse in his ears. Feel his heart hammering against his chest. He tentatively leans over Lami and feels for her pulse. It's there. Weak, quiet, but there. He sighs in relief. 

‘...I'm sorry. Are you upset?’

He opens his mouth to reply and for a moment thinks he's lost his hearing as well when there is no sound. He's quick to piece together that he needs a drink, he hasn't spoken in ten days and his voice simply fails him. He reaches over Lami to their bedside table for some water, but still opts to speak within their heart space. 

‘Just surprised…tell me next time? You scared me.’ 

Law can see his hands shake as they hold the ceramic cup over his folded knees. He knows part of it is from not moving for ten days. Muscle atrophy. He knows part of it is from that scare. Seeing Lami ‘dead’ like that was not good for his mental health. 

She apologizes again going quiet, but Law hates to feel her like that. He assures her over and over again that it's alright till he finally gets a sniffle from her along with a inquiry if he's sure. He's all she has and she doesn't want to lose him. Doesn't wasn't him to hate her. Leave her. 

He puts the cup down and takes one of her hands in his. He pulls it over his own steadily beating heart and promises her that he's fine and he would never leave her. 

Lami goes quiet for a little while longer. She doesn't tell her precious brother that he died for real. Doesn't tell him about the terror of seeing his dead body. How she desperately hoped her devil fruit abilities would work. How terrified she was that first night when she could barely feel his pulse and couldn't feel his presence just yet.  Doesn't.  _ She just doesn't _ . Not yet at least. 

Instead, Wolf comes in eventually to check in on the late riser only to stop mid greeting. He reaches out to grab the door frame. Probably to brace himself, Law thinks and is relieved to feel the soft agreement from Lami. 

He doesn't work that day, instead he is assigned to spend the day recuperating. Relearning how to walk in his own body. Lami is quick to come back around. They don't mention the morning scare. He finds out that Lami can hear if they switch leads, but she is otherwise deaf to the physical world still. Perhaps he can still ‘hear’ when he's not leading because some part of him can still sense the outside world? And Lami cannot because she has no ability to hear? Eventually his thinking and gesticulating leaves Wolf to wave him off with a thin journal to fill with his notes. 

It's a great gift. It helps Law regain some of his finer motor skills. But when night comes he asks Lami to switch to her body again. She dances around the topic briefly, but he wiggles it out of her eventually without mentioning devil fruit. 

‘I'm not used to doing it with humans yet…’

Law doesn't miss the way she mentions humans and keeps a mental note that she has done something similar then with non-humans. That man did leave Lami with a lot of pets…

‘It takes a lot of energy...I'm so tired I can't move!’

This worries him immensely and he asks how she managed to switch them this morning. She proudly replies that she was clever enough to do it after Law had fallen asleep and simply slept off her fatigue. He does applaud her ingenuity and he smiles when he can feel her swell with pride. 

When she does switch he can feel the affects almost immediately. Lami is  _ exhausted _ . She can barely muster the thought to even tell him good night. She falls asleep right before Law can even ask if she’s alright. Her quiet presence is the only thing that lets him know she is. 

He tries to assume control and is met with quite a bit of resistance. The body feels fine, but it’s as if he’s being buffered by something. Maybe it’s part of her fatigue. He thinks about jotting it down in his journal, but for now he let’s her rest. He’d later think to building up his own strength to move when Lami is fatigued like this. It wouldn’t be safe to leave them both sitting ducks. But tonight, he closes his eyes and settles next to her presence. 

There was no speck of light this time.


	3. What Kills Us

It’s the twelfth day when Law thinks he’s killed Lami.

He runs to Wolf faster than he’s ever done through the snow, chest heaving as he sobs. It takes Wolf a few minutes to figure out what’s happened. He’s right to assume it involved Lami.  
Eventually, Wolf gets the boy to calm down and goes in to check on Lami’s body—because Law is terrified to see what’s become of his sister. He confirms that she is still alive, but when he comes out, Law is on his hands and knees, head on the wooden flooring. The boy gritting his teeth through his sobs.

Wolf scratches his head before gathering the boy up in his arms and depositing him in the bed next to Lami. Law backpedals for a few seconds, staring at her in horror as if he’s killed her just now with his own hands before lunging forward and pulling her body into his lap, holding her close.

 _Please, please, please._ He repeats over and over with her name like a mantra and Wolf stands there quietly. He’s not quite sure what to do. He thinks he knows what devil fruit she may have taken, but he doesn’t have to heart to bring it up when she had reacted so poorly to it being mentioned before. Not yet. And even then, he doesn’t know enough about it himself. He just had to hope that this would be enough for now.

It’s two hours later that Wolf finds out exactly what happened. Law and Lami had gone into town to get supplies, nothing different save for the fact that they’d left in Law’s body and not Lami’s—he could carry more things was the argument. But once they’d left some distance, Lami started to sound strained and tired until she faded. The panic that had settled in his bones covered up the terribly weak presence of his sister in his heart space.

It’s another two hours later that Wolf checks in on the Trafalgar siblings and finds that Law hasn’t moved from his place. He’s stopped sobbing and in fact has fallen asleep holding Lami’s body close to his. What he notices immediately is that Lami is awake. She’s in the middle of taking Law’s hat off and setting it down on their bedside table. She smiles a small, weary thing as Law starts to stir and gives his hand a squeeze.

When Wolf steps into her peripheral, she jumps with a small start, eyes wide. He puts his hands up and sits down on the ground beside her. Whatever was going on, Wolf was obviously not supposed to have seen. He doesn’t want the kid to be scared of him, he doesn’t mean to scare her. He won’t pry into what had happened to them, but sometimes he wonders…wonders what she was told. What was done. They were too young to have faced such terrible things.

Her eyes dart nervously between him and Law who eventually stirs. The older man doesn’t get a chance to ask anything. It is Law who is all over his sister. Turning her this way and that way so that he can see her better. Check her face, her pulse, everything. His frantic attention eventually distracts her from her distress with Wolf and she lets out a laugh that’s a bit too quiet.

He hugs her close and she returns the gesture albeit with a bit more fatigue.

Wolf is torn between bringing it up for their safety or ignoring it another day for her trauma.

* * *

Law finds out that her sudden ‘collapse’ was because they had traveled too far from her body. It was fine if she ferried Law in her body, but they couldn’t go too far from her own. She thought that she had been getting better so that it wouldn’t have been a problem. In the future it wouldn’t be, but she was most certainly proven wrong today.

He almost scolds her but stops himself. The feeling is still there though and he can tell that Lami can still feel some sort of connection between them when she deflates. He wants to demand that she tell him the extent of her abilities, but he doesn’t push her. Instead, he holds her close and begs her to not scare him so much.

When he asks her how they can both move, she dances around the answer again and he doesn’t press her any further until he tries to separate to get them food. She holds his hand tightly and refuses to let him go. It takes a few more minutes before she finally blurts out a bit too loudly that they can’t let go. If he wants to stay in his body, they have to be touching in some way.

“The birds are easy, but Law is too big…” She says so quietly that he almost misses it. It proves his theory about the pets and he feels his heart sink. Law had been sent out on with the other children in their raids, but Lami had been in poorer health at that time. He supposed he never _really_ knew what happened when they were apart. He should have known better.

She squeezes his hand to pull him out of his thoughts. With some reluctance she explains that he can stay in his body so long as they are close enough. That the birds and cats were all like him. They could stay in their bodies if they were still in the same room. But Law for whatever reason could only stay if they held hands. Maybe it was because they were both human and had different capacities than birds and cats.

Lami sleeps in his lap while he writes in his journal. She must have been the one to save him, because he was sure he had died that night. Something she had done had effectively tethered him to her and through her he could access his own body. It was probably that same ability that prevented his body from decaying...maybe she was being trained in order to one day to do this to people. He hates himself for not noticing these things before. He was so blinded by hate, he just wanted to see everyone burn while he waited for his death sentence. And now he was just glad that Lami lived through it all.

He kisses her forehead and wakes her up from her nap. He puts his journal away and signs, ‘Bath?’ to her as she blearily looks up. She all but beams at him and nods her head with so much energy he’s sure something in her neck pops.

It’s a strange dance in trying to undress while they keep in contact. At some point he instructs her to stand on his feet, which then turns into a balancing act that only leads into a fit of laughter. Eventually though, they do slip into a warm bath. He washes her hair and doesn’t say anything even as she starts to hum. It’s strange that she knows how to do it, maybe it is something she picked up from the birds. He doesn’t ask, he lets her do as she pleases and eventually joins in.

For the first time in years, they were normal. This _is_ normal. And he can pretend everything is alright.

* * *

They start practicing. He mentions it one day and is ready to retract his request when he notices her hesitation, but she nods her head and squeezes his hand. It would be better for them both. They couldn’t feasibly live like this all the time. They’d gotten over the embarrassment of using the bathroom together. Lami was lucky because she didn’t have to hear anything. Bathtime was no big deal, they’d shared baths for years and Law was a pro at washing her hair now.  
But they both know better.

The world was not so gentle of a place to live in.

So they start practicing. They smartly do it right before bed time, because the moment Law lets go of her hand he’s in Lami’s heart space again and his body is limp. He can tell she’s frowning, but he assures her that they will get the hang of it together.  
It of course wears Lami out and so it also gives Law a chance to take charge through her fatigue. By the fifteenth day they can separate for ten minutes within the spanse of their bedroom and Law can walk around for an hour while Lami is incapacitated.  
He notices the light again. And with Lami unconscious, his curiosity gets the best of him. He reaches out to touch the light and notices that it actually comes closer as he reaches for it. When it touches his hand, he’s temporarily blinded as a warm light washes over his vision and when he blinks it clear there’s a small tabby cat meowing soundlessly at Lami’s tiny toes.

Law is dumbstruck for all of two seconds before he pets the cat behind its ears. He can’t hear it, but he can feel the rumble of purring beneath her hand. It rubs against her knuckles, stretches between her legs and eventually leaves their room, _walking straight through the door._

Floored. He’s floored. Literally and figuratively.

It doesn’t take long for Law to piece things together. Wolf had mentioned a stray that had disappeared around here that he took care of. He had mentioned the war that had torn their village apart. He knew that some of those snowflakes outside weren’t snowflakes. He was fortunate that it was just a cat. What had Lami seen? What horrors? He saw how many of those lights were outside. Death was not kind during wartimes.

For the rest of his hour, he cries because she’s suffered alone while he bathed in his rage for so long. They were too young for all this. He makes a promise to himself to never let her suffer again. Part of him knows it’s naive to pledge to something like that, but sentiment is there.

When he returns to his body he is relieved to find his devil fruit abilities stayed. He spends the rest of the night practicing til he's just as weary as Lami.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I have been super busy preparing for a talk at a conference and then had to recover from the 39 hour drive to and from said conference. I am VERY tired, but I had a few of these chapters written ahead of time!! (I forgot to schedule them, I'm so sorry)


End file.
